The Dog Who Smuggled Drugs

The suspect had brown eyes, stood about two feet tall at the shoulder and had a shag haircut – all over his body. He was a dog.

And he had just smuggled illegal drugs into the shelter.

Let me explain.

While a lot of people focus on our adoption program, the adventures we have with our impounded animals can be the most exciting parts of our jobs. This was brought home to us last week when we brought dog into the shelter after a police call. The dog's owner had just been arrested while his dog was with him.

The arresting officers called Animal Services Officer Dave Hewlett to come take the dog into our custody. (We frequently hold animals in these sorts of cases until a responsible party can come reclaim the animal. For example, we often hold animals that were in the car with someone who was taken into custody for driving while under the influence of intoxicants.)

In this case, the dog's owner explained that the dog was on medication, so Officer Hewlett took the dog's vials of medication and brought the dog into the shelter. When the dog's next medication dose was due, one of our Shelter Technicians opened one of the vials to get the appropriate pill.

But the vial wasn't full of doggie medicine. It was full of what appeared to be marijuana.

Bad, bad, bad dog.

Well, not really. He was a nice dog.

His owner might be in trouble, though. We turned the dog's apparently illegal stash over the police.

The other medicine vial that came in with the dog had the appropriate pills for him, and we made sure he was taken care of. Within a few hours, the dog was picked up by a responsible party.

All the pooches here at the shelter are once again drug-free.

One of the reasons that we love what we do is that we never, ever know what adventures will be coming our way!